I'm waiting for Turkey to downgrade its diplomatic ties with the regime.

I'm especially and particularly waiting for the organized flotillas of humanitarian aid to depart for the besieged Syrian Mediterranean coast.

And on here, I'm waiting for the "Hama Island" thread to grow to 600 posts of heated discussion of the rights of an impoverished, oppressed, courageous Arab minority, yearning for their freedom, and clamped down and butchered in the streets by an illegitimate regime and army. This is outrageous right? A travesty? And there must be dozens of VJ threads by now calling out the horrors of what's going on in Syria? No? Not a one? Interesting.

I'm waiting.

Syria Forces Extend Siege on Hama as Toll Rises

By NADA BAKRI

Published: August 6, 2011

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian security forces tightened their siege on the restive city of Hama on Saturday, and human rights activists said that at least 24 people had been killed on Friday during demonstrations against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Hama has been under heavy assault for a week. Mr. Assad ordered his troops, backed by hundreds of tanks, to roll into the city last Sunday in an attempt to crush an uprising there that he feared could gain momentum and embolden an opposition movement that has sought the downfall of his government since mid-March.

The military operation was mounted amid growing regional and international condemnation. Joining a chorus of countries criticizing the crackdown on democracy advocates, oil-rich Arab states called Saturday for Syria to bring an “immediate end to violence.”

In a statement, the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — urged Syrian leaders to “resort to wisdom and introducing serious and necessary reforms that would protect the rights and dignity of the people, and meet their aspirations.”

The statement followed promises by the United States and European countries to consider new sanctions against Syria.

Human rights activists say that at least 200 people have been killed in Hama since last Sunday, when tanks started shelling neighborhoods. Telephone lines, water and electricity have also been cut off for the past week, and no bakeries have opened in that time. Some residents reported shortages of food, an activist said several days ago, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis that could be severe.

Activists also said that the death toll could be much higher, but that a comprehensive and accurate count was almost impossible, given the state of communications in the city, the siege and the difficulty of moving around.

They said that they feared the near-total media blackout imposed on the city could mean that the military was carrying out an unrestrained operation.

Wissam Tarif, an activist with Avaaz, a group that has sought to document the uprising, said a doctor in Hama told him that several bodies brought to his hospital had been shot in the head at close range, leaving him to presume they had been executed.

Residents have also spoken of bodies strewn across the streets and of people bleeding to death, their relatives unable to drive them to hospitals. Bodies are being buried in the nearest private gardens or public parks.

The Syrian government, however, disputes the activists’ accounts, and blames a foreign conspiracy for the unrest. It says it is battling Muslim extremists.

For the first time on Friday, Syrian television broadcast images of the destruction in Hama, showing burned buildings, makeshift barricades and deserted streets dotted with rubble. The video appeared designed to show that government forces had put down a rebellion in the city.

The video indicated that the government had taken back the city, which had enjoyed a sense of freedom since June, largely free of armed forces.

An activist from Hama who spoke via satellite phone said that shelling continued overnight Friday and Saturday morning and that several people had been killed.

The Local Coordinating Committees in Syria, a coalition of activists who help organize and document protests, said Saturday that at least 24 people had died Friday.

The coalition said nine of those deaths were in Damascus, the capital, and its suburbs during demonstrations after noon prayers and after a special evening prayer, known as tarawih, performed only during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.

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Syria shares a border with Israel. Any concerted worldwide focus on the situation there will divert attention away from "The Middle East Problem". Regardless of the fact that the Syrians have killed more of their own in a few months than have died in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years, it suits few political agendas to switch focus away from the Israelis.

It would be interesting to compare how many civilians have died in Syria, with no NATO / U.N. response, compared to the situation in Libya when operations to enforce the No-Fly Zone commenced.

I'm waiting for Turkey to downgrade its diplomatic ties with the regime.

I'm especially and particularly waiting for the organized flotillas of humanitarian aid to depart for the besieged Syrian Mediterranean coast.

And on here, I'm waiting for the "Hama Island" thread to grow to 600 posts of heated discussion of the rights of an impoverished, oppressed, courageous Arab minority, yearning for their freedom, and clamped down and butchered in the streets by an illegitimate regime and army. This is outrageous right? A travesty? And there must be dozens of VJ threads by now calling out the horrors of what's going on in Syria? No? Not a one? Interesting.

I'm waiting for Turkey to downgrade its diplomatic ties with the regime.

I'm especially and particularly waiting for the organized flotillas of humanitarian aid to depart for the besieged Syrian Mediterranean coast.

And on here, I'm waiting for the "Hama Island" thread to grow to 600 posts of heated discussion of the rights of an impoverished, oppressed, courageous Arab minority, yearning for their freedom, and clamped down and butchered in the streets by an illegitimate regime and army. This is outrageous right? A travesty? And there must be dozens of VJ threads by now calling out the horrors of what's going on in Syria? No? Not a one? Interesting.

This article and its tragic situation can stand on its own. When used to bait those who discussed another issue for 50 days, you diminish this situation's own importance. Discuss the concern raised in this article, and leave the baiting out of it. All that baiting accomplishes is to cause those being baited to dig deeper into their own perspectives - a lose-lose proposition for all concerned.

“...Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?”

This article and its tragic situation can stand on its own. When used to bait those who discussed another issue for 50 days, you diminish this situation's own importance. Discuss the concern raised in this article, and leave the baiting out of it. All that baiting accomplishes is to cause those being baited to dig deeper into their own perspectives - a lose-lose proposition for all concerned.

This article and its tragic situation can stand on its own. When used to bait those who discussed another issue for 50 days, you diminish this situation's own importance. Discuss the concern raised in this article, and leave the baiting out of it. All that baiting accomplishes is to cause those being baited to dig deeper into their own perspectives - a lose-lose proposition for all concerned.

There is a direct and obvious parallel.

Two countries with a Mediterranean coastline.

Embattled populations locked in with no exits.

Civilian lives at risk.

Of course, there are very great differences between the situations. Differences I'm interested in exploring. They are parallels, but by no means identical.

Where are the flotillas? When does the humanitarian lift depart from Turkey or Greece? Surely the embattled Syrian populace could use a spiritual lift from knowing they are not alone, that the people who support the Palestinian cause support them equally? Surely they also desperately could use the food and medicine and humanitarian aid? Where is the international community?

Chritiane Amanpour interviewed the US Ambassador to Syria today. He had recently visited Hama. The populace was overjoyed to see him, and cheered "the Americans are coming!". They made it clear what they want is solidarity from the world, and not a Libya-style military intervention. Ok. So where is the solidarity? Where is the flotilla?

Of course, there are very great differences between the situations. Differences I'm interested in exploring. They are parallels, but by no means identical.

Where are the flotillas? When does the humanitarian lift depart from Turkey or Greece? Surely the embattled Syrian populace could use a spiritual lift from knowing they are not alone, that the people who support the Palestinian cause support them equally? Surely they also desperately could use the food and medicine and humanitarian aid? Where is the international community?

Chritiane Amanpour interviewed the US Ambassador to Syria today. He had recently visited Hama. The populace was overjoyed to see him, and cheered "the Americans are coming!". They made it clear what they want is solidarity from the world, and not a Libya-style military intervention. Ok. So where is the solidarity? Where is the flotilla?

I agree with you. The world has turned a blind eye to the brutality in Syria. It doesn't excuse the situation anywhere else but brutality anywhere is brutality everywhere (to channel MLK).

His comments followed one of the bloodiest episodes in the five-month-old uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad.

The Syrian military undertook their tanked-backed crackdown Sunday in Hama, the same city where Assad's father, 19 years ago, crushed another armed revolt, razing neighbourhoods and killing thousands of people in 1982.

Security forces had besieged the Sunni Muslim city of 700,000 for nearly a month before the crackdown on the eve of Ramadan, a holy month when Muslims fast during daylight hours.

The Syrian state news agency said the military entered Hama to purge armed groups terrorizing citizen — but western leaders dismissed that explanation.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was appalled by the Syrian government's "horrifying" actions, and promised to work with others to isolate Assad.

"Syria will be a better place when a democratic transition goes forward," Obama said in a statement.

Britain and France also condemned the Hama assault. Italy urged a tough statement by the UN Security Council.

Turkey, one of Assad's main allies until the uprising, said it and the rest of the Muslim world were "deeply disappointed" by the violence that belied Assad's earlier reform pledges.

Harper, meanwhile, expressed concern about reports that a key official in the opposition has been arrested.

"Canada calls for the immediate release of this individual, along with all others detained because of peaceful protests," Harper said.

He said Syrian President Assad is "faced with a clear choice: Deliver the reform that the Syrian people are asking or get out of the way so others can deliver it."

But in a development that challenges a central pillar of the Syrian regime's legitimacy, Palestinians in Syria are beginning to turn against a dictatorship that for decades used its claims of resisting Israel and fighting for Palestinian rights as justification for the repression of its own people.

"We will not accept to be a bargaining chip for the Syrian regime," said Abu Ammar, 50, a Palestinian refugee living in Yarmouk, a poor southern suburb of Damascus and the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.

"The regime wants to use us against the pro-democracy protesters but I think most Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk now moved from being neutral to being on the side of the Syrian protesters," he said. Ammar is a former militant in Fatah, the dominant secular Palestinian party, and is now a car mechanic in Yarmouk.

The camp is home to some 150,000 registered Palestinians, as well as tens of thousands of Syrians.

As Syrian protesters demanding basic rights continue to be gunned down by President Bashar al-Assad's security forces, Syria's Palestinians are beginning to stand up like citizens themselves, protesting against the ruthless violence of Assad's government.

"Palestinian refugees in Syria live among Syrians, not like in Lebanon. For six decades we have lived together and there are many mixed marriages and a new, mixed generation," said a political activist from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

"When the protesters call on us to participate, it shows they consider us partners, not strangers. We have the same rights as Syrians, so we also have the same responsibilities."

On July 1, in the first reported mass participation of Palestinians in the opposition since the uprising began in mid-March, more than 3,000 Palestinians from the refugee camp in the central city of Homs joined the pro-democracy protests.

More than simply a boost to the size of the protests that Friday, the participation of the Palestinians, for some long-time Syria watchers, represented a seismic shift.

"Dictators have used the Palestinians for the last 50 years to get legitimacy, saying to their people, 'You have to tolerate all this violence, all this lack of freedom, all this brutality because we're going to liberate Palestine.' That's a lie," said Wissam Tarif, director of Insan, a Syrian human rights organization.

"My father bought it. And the fathers and grandfathers of the people protesting on the streets bought it too. But we don't."

Anger is growing among the half a million Palestinians living in Syria as details emerge of the regime's role in pushing Palestinian protesters into a deadly confrontation with Israel last month, in what was widely condemned as a move to divert attention from its own brutal crackdown.

On June 5, the 44th anniversary of Israel's occupation of Syria's southern Golan Heights, the PFLP-GC, a faction long allied with the regime, helped organize hundreds of Palestinians from Yarmouk to travel to the Golan Heights.

The fertile plateau is one of Israel's most stable borders, with barely a shot fired since the end of 1973's Yom Kippur or October War.

The regime regularly justified its near half century application of emergency law [7], which suspended many basic rights outlined in the Constitution, by the fact that the Golan remains occupied.

When Palestinians attempted to cross the border fence, 20 were shot dead and some 270 others wounded by Israeli soldiers, the second such incident within a month, prompting global headlines. The shootings were all filmed live by state-run Syria TV.

Never before had the regime allowed Palestinians, Syrians or any Arabs to attempt to cross its border with Israel.

Indeed, Damascus has for decades pursued a policy of directing Arab resistance into neighboring Lebanon. In the 1970s, Syria played a role pushing Yasser Arafat's Fatah fighters into South Lebanon, where they launched attacks on Israel from an area that came to be known as "Fatahland."

During the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon beginning in 1982, Syria helped arm Hezbollah in its successful struggle to liberate South Lebanon, before assisting the Iranian-financed group to become the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon.

The PFLP-GC, whose headquarters is in Damascus, maintains bases along the mountains of Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The PFLP-GC is listed as a "foreign terrorist organisation [9]" in the US over a series of bombings and plane hijackings in the 1970s and 1980s as well as attacks on Israel.

In a 2002 report [10] on the group, the US-based Middle East Intelligence Bulletin described the PFLP-GC as having once acted as "a Palestinian auxiliary of Syrian military intelligence." The group has long received financial and military support [11] from the regime, as well as from Iran and Libya.

"All Palestinians know the PFLP-GC organized the trip to the Golan to help Syria," said Nidal Mahmoud, 30, an accountant from Yarmouk.

"In the graveyard I saw the corpses of Palestinians who died for nothing, just to divert attention away from Syria's crisis to the borders with Israel. The Palestinian groups do nothing useful for us; they work for Syria, Iran and other countries."

When PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a former captain in the Syrian army, attempted to make a speech lambasting Israel at the funerals in Yarmouk, enraged mourners threw stones at him, accusing Jibril of manipulating the Palestinian cause to serve the Assad regime.

Protesters then attacked the PFLP-GC's headquarters in Yarmouk with stones, prompting guards to open fire,

[12].

There is unconfirmed evidence that the carefully orchestrated move to allow Palestinian protesters to cross the border with Israel came from the highest ranks of the regime.

An allegedly leaked memo from the office of the Mayor of Quneitra, the closest Syrian town to the Golan border, describes how Assef Shawkat, President Assad's brother-in-law, the former chief of military intelligence and the current deputy head of the armed forces, ordered a military intelligence captain to assist protestors to cross the fence.

"Permission is hereby granted allowing approaching crowds to cross the cease fire line toward the occupied Majdal-Shamms [Golan Heights], and to further allow them to engage physically with each other in front of United Nations agents and offices. Furthermore, there is no objection if a few shots are fired in the air," the memo read.

The leaked document was supplied by Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Damascus Center for Human Rights and a visiting scholar at Harvard University. While it could not be independently verified, Ziadeh has been a consistently reliable source of information on the Syrian uprising.

The U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., Rosemary DiCarlo, said the protest in the Golan represented "a transparent ploy by the Syrian government to incite violence along the disengagement line in order to divert public attention from its own indiscriminate killings and abuses of the human rights of the Syrian people."

That position was backed by similar robust statements from German and French U.N. ambassadors.

Despite the deaths in the Golan and Yarmouk, by no means all Palestinians have broken with the regime.

"Syria is the only country in the Arab world which deals with Palestinians as its citizens," said a pro-Syrian Palestinian activist close to the PFLP-GC, who asked to be known only as Ibrahim.

"Syria has been supporting Palestinian groups for more than four decades and now is the time for these groups to reward Syria and stand with it in this big crisis."

Ibrahim said the PFLP-GC and Fatah Intifada, a Syrian-backed radical offshoot of Fatah, would remain loyal to Assad. He criticized Hamas, the powerful Islamist group, for choosing to remain neutral in Syria. Hamas had apparently rejected demands by the regime, quoted in a report [14] by the International Crisis Group, that it provide political and material support to crush the protests.

In an interview with France 24 [15] on May 9, Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' Damascus-based leader, described the Arab Spring as "beautiful" and said freedom and democracy are needed in Syria.

The regime has further deepened animosity among Palestinians by seeking, in the early days of the uprising, to directly blame Palestinians for inciting the instability.

On March 21, the private daily Al Watan, owned by Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf, said unrest in Daraa was the work of the defunct jihadist group Fatah al-Islam, which rose up in 2007 in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon.

On March 26, Bouthaina Shaaban, Assad's political advisor, claimed Palestinians from the Al-Ramel refugee camp outside the port city of Lattakia [16] had attacked stores in an effort to ignite a civil war.

Writing in the Beirut-based An-Nahar, which is regularly critical of the Syrian regime, Randa Haydar [17] said the protests against the PFLP-GC in Yarmouk represented "a popular and spontaneous uprising against the Palestinian factions taking advantage of the refugees as well as the Syrian regime trading in the blood of Palestinians."

A Syrian official, quoted in the International Crisis Group report, put it more bluntly: "The regime can no longer claim to be standing up for resistance."

Members of a pro-Islamic human rights group and Syrians living in Turkey gather, one holding a placard that reads ' we did not forget Hama' as they stage a protest against the Syrian regime and its leader Bashar Assad during a protest outside the Syrian embassy in Ankara, Turkey, Monday, Aug. 1, 2011.(AP Photo)

ROME — Italy has recalled its ambassador to Syria to protest the repression of anti-government demonstrations, urging other European nations do the same, and Russia said it would not oppose a U.N. resolution to condemn the violence.

Italy is the first European Union country to withdraw its ambassador, although the EU has been tightening sanctions, imposing asset freezes and travel bans against five additional Syrian military and government officials on Monday.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, the Security Council began negotiating a text Tuesday after failing for more than three months to make any statement on the Syrian violence -- except to condemn the attacks on the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus.

During talks that dragged into the evening Tuesday, the council was negotiating on the wording of a European-drafted resolution that was updated with proposals from Brazil and others in what several ambassadors called a positive step.

India's U.N. Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, the current council president, had said the goal was to reach tentative agreement on a text that could be sent to capitals overnight and then tackle the divisive issue of whether it should be adopted as a legally binding resolution or a weaker presidential statement.

After lengthy discussions, the ambassadors broke for the evening and agreed to resume negotiations on Wednesday morning after getting guidance from their capitals.

"Unfortunately no final agreement was possible today," said Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin. He said he hoped the overnight break would allow members "to see whether common ground is possible."

Lesser-ranking diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were private, said one key unresolved issue was how to address the violence against unarmed civilians and attacks on Syrian security forces. The Europeans and the U.S. insist that the Syrian government's violence against unarmed civilians, which account for the vast number of casualties, cannot be equated with the attacks on security forces, the diplomats said.

Russia's government softened its stance, indicating it would not oppose a resolution. Last month, Russia and China had threatened to veto the original European resolution that would have condemned the Syrian attacks, effectively blocking it. The Europeans and U.S. want a resolution but diplomats said other council members including India, Brazil and South Africa want a presidential statement.

"If there are some unbalanced things like sanctions or pressure, I think that set of measures is bad for everything we seek. And that is less bloodshed and more democracy," Sergei Vershinin, chief of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Middle East and North Africa Department, told Russian news agencies Tuesday.

He said Russia is "not categorically against" adopting a new U.N. resolution on Syria, but that it should not impose sanctions because that would only escalate the conflict.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota told reporters in Brasilia his country was working with India and South Africa on a proposed resolution that he hoped would gain consensus.

The resolution would insist "that the Syrian government put an end to the violence in the shortest time possible," said Patriota. He added that he hoped that Brazil, India and South Africa would reach a separate agreement to send a delegation of their vice ministers to Damascus to talk with Syrian authorities about ways to end the violence.

The European-drafted resolution has faced opposition from Russia, China, India, South Africa and Brazil, partly because they fear that it may be used as a pretext for armed intervention against Syria. They have argued that a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilians in Libya has been misused by NATO to justify 5 months of air strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

Italy's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it has decided to recall its envoy "in the face of the horrible repression against the civil population" by the Syrian government, which launched a deadly new push against protesters as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began.

The ambassador was coming back Tuesday night, the Foreign Ministry said.

In July, the Qatari embassy in Damascus suspended its operations and the ambassador left the country. But the impetus for that move were protests outside the embassy against Al-Jazeera's coverage of the Syrian uprising. Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar.

Syria accuses Al-Jazeera and other media of incitement and fabricating events in their coverage of the protests.

Rome's appeal to fellow EU nations was not immediately heeded. Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain and Sweden had no such plans for now.

France also signalled no move was imminent, suggesting Rome had not sent its proposals through official diplomatic channels, and there was no EU-wide initiative to recall envoys from Damascus, officials in Brussels said.

The British Foreign Office said it shares Italy's "strong concerns about the situation in Syria" but is not recalling its ambassador in Damascus.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said tougher EU sanctions were sending a "clear and unambiguous" message.

"In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions," he said in a statement. Without change, he added, "President Assad and those around him will find themselves isolated internationally and discredited within Syria."

Poland, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, called instead for joint international action, with the U.N. Security Council playing a key role. The Polish foreign ministry added the EU delegation in Syria will also remain in Damascus.

The Czech Republic said ambassadors are the only foreigners in a country where virtually all foreign media are banned. "We need to maintain an independent source of information there," Foreign Ministry spokesman Vit Kolar said.

In Rome, a Foreign Ministry undersecretary, Stefania Craxi, said Italy wanted to send "a strong signal of condemnation" for the crackdown.

Craxi said Assad appeared "incapable" of handling the situation and implementing the serious reforms that both his citizens and the international community demand, the ANSA news agency reported. Craxi was briefing lawmakers on the situation in Syria.

Rome will also suspend co-operative programs with Damascus, save for aid destined to Iraqi refugees and other humanitarian assistance, Craxi said. The programs have been worth a total of C50 million for the past three years, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Syrian troops killed nearly 100 people in two days, firing at worshippers heading to Ramadan prayers in the city of Hama, an opposition stronghold. On Tuesday, the troops tightened their siege on the city, sending residents fleeing for their lives.

The repression has caused an international outcry.

President Barack Obama called the latest attacks "outrageous," and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with U.S.-based Syrian democracy activists in Washington on Tuesday as the Obama administration weighed new sanctions against Syria.

Clinton "expressed her admiration for the courage of the brave Syrian people who continue to defy the government's brutality in order to express their universal rights," U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah demanded an end to the bloodshed in Syria Monday and recalled his country’s ambassador from Damascus, in a rare case of one of the Arab world’s most powerful leaders intervening against another.

It was the sharpest criticism the oil giant — an absolute monarchy that bans political opposition — has directed against any Arab state since a wave of protests roiled the Middle East and toppled autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt.

The Saudi statement came with all the weight of the king’s personal authority, and follows similar statements since Saturday from the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“What is happening in Syria is not acceptable for Saudi Arabia,” he said in a written statement read out on Al Arabiya satellite television.

Events in Syria had “nothing to do with religion, or values, or ethics,” the king said.

In Washington, a U.S. State Department official said the king’s statement was a strong signal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

“This is another clear sign that the international community, including Syria’s neighbors, are repulsed by the brutal actions of the Syrian government and will continue to stand with the people of Syria,” the official said.

A former U.S. government official with knowledge of the region said the Saudi king likely went public to press concerns that had been conveyed privately.

“I think he did it on his own because the private messages were clearly being ignored,” the former official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A crackdown by Assad against protests has become one of the most violent episodes in the wave of unrest sweeping through the Arab world this year.

On Sunday, activists said Syrian troops with tanks had launched an assault on the city of Deir al-Zor in the east of the country, killing dozens. The past week has seen scores of people killed in a siege of Hama, a city where Assad’s father launched a crackdown nearly 30 years ago, killing thousands.

Assad’s government says it is fighting against criminals and armed extremists who have provoked violence by attacking its troops. Activists and Western countries say Assad’s forces have attacked peaceful protesters.

“Syria should think wisely before it’s too late and issue and enact reforms that are not merely promises but actual reforms,” the Saudi king said.

“Either it chooses wisdom on its own or it will be pulled down into the depths of turmoil and loss.”

ARAB LEAGUE BREAKS SILENCE ON SYRIA

Earlier on Sunday, the Arab League, in a rare response to the escalating bloodshed in Syria, called on authorities there to stop acts of violence against civilians.

Although several Arab states have joined the West in opposing Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, most of the region’s rulers have been cautious about criticising other Arab leaders during the wave of protests this year.

The other regional heavyweight, Turkey, whose foreign minister is due in Damascus on Tuesday, has been voicing its disapproval for months.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed the ongoing violence and security operations in Syria in a phone call with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu Sunday, the State Department said.

Clinton discussed the U.S. position that Syria must immediately return its military to barracks and release all prisoners of concern and asked Davutoglu to “reinforce these messages” with the Syrian government, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Saudi Arabia had maintained its silence regarding Syria despite deep antagonism over the contest for regional hegemony with Shi’ite Iran, one of Syria’s only allies and chief patron of Hezbollah, the Shi’ite militia and political movement to which Saudi Arabia’s allies have lost influence in Lebanon.

Saudi columnist Hussein Shobokshi said the king’s address placed the responsibility for the bloodshed squarely on Syria’s ruling circle, and that recalling the Saudi ambassador could pave the way for other states to wash their hands of Assad.

“This will open up the gate for other countries to follow suit, Islamic and Arab,” he said.

“I think these will ignite the spirit of protesters and give them hope that the international, Saudi and Islamic, Arab communities are firmly behind them. It will give them hope that victory is in sight.”

“I do not think that the Syrian government’s position is reversible. I think it is doomed and we should all now start dealing with a post-Assad reality.”

Shortly after the address, Al Arabiya reported Kuwaiti parliamentarians called on members of the GCC — a bloc of resource-rich monarchies in which Saudi influence is extensive — to recall ambassadors from Damascus.

The channel provided no further details immediately.

King Abdullah sent Saudi troops in March to help neighbouring monarchy Bahrain put down anti-government protests, and Saudi officials have criticised the decision to put Egypt’s ousted leader Hosni Mubarak on trial.

Saudi Arabia has acted as a mediator in neighbouring Yemen, and is hosting its President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who went there for medical treatment after being wounded in a bomb attack when protests against his rule turned into open conflict.

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